23.6.05

It's not London, it's NEW London

The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.

City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.

Yes, yes let's tear down Victorian-era homes so that we can "complement" a Pfizer research center, among other amentiies. I guess the ICC is going to happen now.

9.6.05

Pop Quiz

It seems to me that the shots at the chairman from Democratic elites says more about our party, sadly, than it does about Chairman Dean. Not much of a mystery really why we're the minority party.

Um, clearly that would be Jim Jordan. Right. Jim Jordan, former campaign manager for John Kerry, unceremoniously booted for his near-destruction of Kerry's campaign in the primaries. Maybe you had to be there, but man...it's kinda weird for him to be the one making sense on this.

Just sort of generally, however, this has been pretty revealing on just what a bunch of fucking useless grandstanders and strivers the leadership of the Democratic Party (such as it is) truly are. There's really no debating the fact that the GOP is, as Dean said, mostly a "white, Christian party." Yes. That is the case.

6.6.05

It's a Good Thing

Longtime readers of this site (both of you) will note my, er, obsession with hemorrhagic fevers. Why so obsessed? Well, I did read The Hot Zone in high school and it scared the poop out of me; mostly though, I just consider hemorrhagic fevers to be a really, really awful way to die, and most/all of humanity dying that way would be very, very suboptimal.

Scientists trying to develop vaccines against Africa's deadly Marburg and Ebola viruses are reporting an important milestone, a new type of vaccine that prevents the diseases in monkeys. Successfully immunizing monkeys is an essential step toward the goal of producing vaccines for people.

Two new vaccines, one for Marburg and one for Ebola, were 100 percent effective in a study of 12 macaques being published today in the journal Nature Medicine. Monkeys given just one shot of vaccine and later injected with a high dose of virus did not even get sick. Normally, all the animals would be expected to die.

Now, I'm pretty creeped out by vaccines generally, esp. for the real nasties, as the idea of injecting that which I'm trying to prevent seems...odd. And esp. since there's usually a certain failure rate where, indeed, the live virus functions not as a vaccine but just as the disease that's s'posed to be prevented.

But. 100% effective? Granted, it's only 12 macaques, but 100% is a good number.

This, however, is not as good:

Angola, where a Marburg epidemic was first detected in March, is still struggling to contain the disease, which has killed 340 of 408 victims.